Gian Maria Tosatti: Italy lacks a collective identity for contemporary art

In a speech at the Galleria Nazionale di Roma on November 7, 2017, artist Gian Maria Tosatti argued that Italy lacks a philosophical idea of itself, which prevents the development of a coherent contemporary art scene. He described Italy as a 'cultural expression' rather than a nation-state, and criticized the absence of critical frameworks to connect the work of a generation of artists. Tosatti named Eugenio Tibaldi, Roberto Cuoghi, Giuseppe Stampone, Luigi Presicce, Arcangelo Sassolino, Andrea Mastrovito, and Silvia Giambrone as examples of artists producing significant work in isolation. He lamented that no book in the last ten years has attempted a comparative analysis of this generation, and he compared their coherence to Arte Povera or Neorealism. The speech was delivered at the launch of Ludovico Pratesi's book 'Perché l’Italia non ama più l’arte contemporanea?' (Castelvecchi, 2017).